


Friend, please

by Itta



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Teenagers, Twenty One Pilots Reference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 10:38:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14830700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Itta/pseuds/Itta
Summary: Please do not read when you are TRIGGERED by Suicidal behavior, Self-harm or Alcohol Abuse. There is nothing wrong with closing this Story now if you don't feel up to it. For all the readers who elected this story to read: I am honored.





	Friend, please

**Author's Note:**

> Please do not read when you are TRIGGERED by Suicidal behavior, Self-harm or Alcohol Abuse. There is nothing wrong with closing this Story now if you don't feel up to it. For all the readers who elected this story to read: I am honored.

It was summer, the night was young, and we laid in the grass, giggling before 8 p.m. Drunken and happy. I felt young and strangely content, like a college movie. The night went by and we played beer pong, at some point we wandered the streets, came back and smaller groups sat together. We were nine or ten people in total, so we noticed quickly that one after on disappeared into Alexa’s kitchen. After some time, me and Christina followed the others into the kitchen. Mary-Joan sat there crying, the others were gathered around her and I felt out of place. We were trying to get something about of her, but she was crying too much, and I felt the need to help her. We were in the same class for five years and she once called me her best friend, a sentiment I could never return. Maybe she always knew. However, that sentiment was the reason I wanted to help her, with realising at the same time that I couldn’t. It was clear that she had already told the others, Lucy and Angela, what was up. I told the others to leave her be, too many people were not good for her right now. And so, Lucy, Angela and Alexa stayed with her, I think. I don’t remember clearly. I left her in the kitchen with the other two. I don't know if it was the best or worst decision I could have made in the Moment. I feel like I don't know anything. Maybe that's punishment.  
I remember how she was picked up by her mom.  
She asked: “Are you snivelling?” in an awful tone.  
I felt bad for letting her leave, but I believed that it was the best for her to get some sleep. Later the others told me why she cried: Because of her bunny, which died half a year ago. I never had pets, but that seemed exaggerated, she was sixteen, for god’s sake, she should be able to deal with that death. I thought, but I wasn’t really sure if I knew her good enough to judge. In hide sight, I don’t know if I ever knew her. She spoke a lot when we were alone, about her bunny, some guy she texted with or her annoying sister, but never heart to heart or deep. Maybe that was just her personality and I am an asshole. I know one of theese thing, the other is a guess.  
She was to master of: “I don’t know” and “I don’t care” and “You decide”.  
I often had the feeling she had a swallow personality, maybe I am mean, maybe I am going to hell from my neglection. I just never felt connected with her. We had spent five years together and I stayed two or three times at her house.  
I didn’t know that night was the beginning of something else.

 

Our group sat in the cafeteria at school, same table, same time as always and half a year dropped by like the chocolate liqueur I refused to drink at our party nights. I didn’t know if Mary-Joan liked to drink it. I just knew that she was in school just as quite as the five years before, maybe her silence changed into something deeper, but we didn’t realise. I will never know. It was winter, we celebrated that there was no more class test for the next few months. We stayed at Juliet’s house and played games, at some point Lucy was drunk, threw up and I held her hair with Alexa. I was running between bathroom and living room. At some point I realised that most of the people were missing. I knew why after a visit in the kitchen. Mary-Joan was throwing up, whispering:  
“I want to die”  
all the time, weeping for her bunny. We got Lucy to sober up when she was picked up at midnight by Mary-Joan’s mum. Mary didn’t sober up. She almost fell down the stairs because she was so drunk, nearly forgot her shoes, all while Angela and her twin sister tried to get her into her clothes. Mary-Joan’s mother just stood there, saying things like:  
“Don’t be pathetic-!”  
That moment went over my head and I began to hate that woman.

 

We talked in our group a lot about Mary-Joan’s behaviour, what to do. It couldn’t stay that way. I think, or say, I hope, that everyone was concerned in some way, although complaining about her silent attitude beforehand. It is terrible to be friends with some one who never speaks. Or maybe it is terrible to be friends with us, because we couldn’t be better.  
A few days passed, and I decided to speak with Mary-Joan. We were sitting in the cafeteria, waiting for our next lesson, because one teacher called in sick surprisingly. I sat there, doing homework or something and Looked at some point. And Mary-Joan sat there. Crying, I think she didn’t even tried to hide it. Two of my other friend were on the toilet at the moment. We were alone. Should I try to talk to her now? Should we go outside? I didn’t want to leave all our bags unattended. I don’t know how many minutes passed. My friends came back, and I asked Mary-Joan if she wanted to go outside. Sky was dark, like it was going to rain soon. This would surely only take a few minutes. We walked a few minutes over the playground, slowly, surely. We both knew what was going to happen.  
“Soooo, about the other day, you know you can talk to us, right?”  
“Yes.”  
“You really can. Please, know that.”  
“I know.”  
“What happened?”  
I don’t know any more what she answered. I just know that she suddenly said something like:  
“I am not a part of the group. I don’t even want to be a part and you don’t want me either. I will not attend at the parties again. I was only doing it for my mother. She always wanted me to go out.”  
I also don’t remember what I answered. I felt like in trance. Suddenly we stood under a roof, it had started raining, it was getting cold. Another fragment of my memories shows Mary-Joan saying:  
“You don’t know what it is like to plan your suicide.”  
And I tried desperately to tell her that life was beautiful, that dying was not an option and foolish me was thinking about Twenty One Pilots. A band we both loved, listened to. Mary-Joan even got me to a concert, a wonderful memory, drenched in pain, because I was there with her. One song is named: Friend, please. And it was stuck in my head. I though if it would have changed something if I quoted her favourite band.  
"Friend, please remove your hands from  
Over your eyes for me  
I know you want to leave but  
Friend, please don't take your life away from me"  
I didn’t. Why? Life wasn’t ridiculously poetic. We stood there in the rain and I was thinking about ways to convince her from taking her life. Maybe I should have told her how I self-harmed one or two years ago, how I overcame it and how she could overcome it. I didn’t tell her. Why? In that moment it was all about her, but she wasn’t convinced, by anything I said. I couldn’t stop myself asking:  
“How long can you stay? Is there a date, a time? Do you want to take you’re a-levels next year? Will you stay until Christmas?”  
And she asked me what I wanted from Christmas in response, I answered. Trying to keep that conversation alive. Later she answered that she wanted to take her A-levels. After that she could end it. And it was getting so cold, the rain was getting heavier and I asked her to go back inside.  
“We don’t need to sit with the others. We can sit in a different room.” - “I don’t care.”  
She was the Queen of it, like always. I wondered if she didn’t care about the cold because she planned to take all warmth away from her body. We sat in the hallway, after some time I got her to go back to the others, after all, our bags were still there.  
We sat down, and my friend asked if everything was okay. Mary said yes. I shook my head. I felt like crying.  
Later, I told my mom about Mary- I never tell her something like that. She told me to talk with Mr. Smith, the school counsellors. I visited him with Alexa, we didn’t tell the others about the visit. I forgot why. Maybe they would ague against it? We told him about her drunkenness, the bunny and how we suspect that there was so much more to be sad about than the bunny, because her parents divorced, but she never told us about that. We just heard about the bunny.  
Mr. Smith called a psychologist and told us that if a person voiced their thoughts it was unlikely that they would commit suicide, but you had to take care of that person and every comment in that way can’t be ignored. He told us that we were good friends for seeking help. A day later, a Friday, he called Mary’s mother.  
Mary was called out of the lesson and Lucy approached me with Mary’s bag in her hands. “Do you know why Mary was called out of the lesson by Mr. Smith?” No. I told her.  
School ended, and I was picked up by my aunt, like every Friday and her car parked next too the one of Mary’s mother. The woman I hated for her behaviour cried and Lucy was obviously trying to comfort her. I ducked and made sure nobody saw me. I was the one who caused the mess. 

 

Lucy was angry. She told me in the endless discussions we had on our way home. How we only called Mr. Smith because me and Alexa wanted good grates. How we missed all the signs. How we could have warned Mary-Joan she was about the be called into Mr. Smith’s office. I told her that I will never benefit from that story, how I could have never dealt with the fault in Mary’s dead. How you can’t warn a person, because Mr. Smith used simple question:  
“Do you plan to kill yourself?”  
That question is so strange, so direct that a person involuntary says the truth. I told her multiple times, every time she accused me. I had the feeling she was the mouthpiece of Mary and her mother. That made me angry. Lucy could have seen the signs aswell. There is no reason why she way talking for Mary's mother. That woman was grown-up. She should be able to talk to teenagers and not send another one to deal with all this shit. I was angry, because that way Mary would never speak for herself. Everything was too much for me at that time.  
But things got quiet.  
I stopped fighting with Lucy. She mentioned once that Mary-Joan started to see a psychologist. Once I came up to Mary-Joan and said:  
“If you want to talk about what happened in the last weeks, I’m ready to do so. In the breaks, after school, maybe a phone call.”  
Mary-Joan’s answer was simple:  
“Mhmm.”  
Nothing more. Not even a real word. We never really spoke after that. She never came up to use again. I was incrededly angry. She could alleast tell me that she hated me, so I could get a strange sense of closure. But nothing, just the fact that I can’t listen to “Friend, please” anymore.

 

But today changed something. I was n the shower, spotify on shuffle and “Friend, please” came on and I felt the need to write everything down. Every step of my strange dislike of my former friend and every step of my failure and self-hate. It is strange that today, of all days I started to write it down. In the moring I called a women of one of those siuiced hotlines, because after years of being “clean” I had the need to self-harm me again. After that I had informed my friedns about my condition, so they could help me. In the afternoon I want to the Cinema. With Lucy. And at night, I wrote this down, hoping that Mary-Joan will never find this, because after reading it she will be surely tell me:  
“I hate you.”  
And I will realise that I never wanted that closure.

Edit:  
More months passed. I think iT nearly happened a yer ago, that first summer night. I think I have come to Peace. I should hae behaved different, but I can't Change the past. Mary doesn't want me. That's fine. She should be praised for making that decision. I want to tell everyone that there is always something worthfFighting and staying alive for.

**Author's Note:**

> I thank you for staying until the end. Please tell me what you think. I wrote this in one sitting, sorry for all the mistakes.


End file.
